Put the new timing belts of the old gal today and what a breeze it was to do thanks to littlebeaver and his vise grip idea. Cleaned and flushed the radiator, new hoses, adjusted valves, and changed oil. She is done and ready to give to my son. I will give it to him after I ride it out to littlebeavers house for a show and tell . Thanks again for a great site! Ed

You should have brought the parts and supplies with you to Beaver's place and let him do it for you See, my 1500 is about due for belts, coolant flush, some other maintenance. I'm planning on making a trip to Olathe, KS this summer to visit a friend and that's what I'm going to do. Give beaver some hands on with a 1500 so he can see how much he really wants one

1500's scare me...Their so big.... I have never even touched one, well,,, I had one for about a week, long story......I wouldn't know what to do. ... Yeah we can fight about whether we should use straws or not.... Cyborg over at the NGW site said he would never change his belts out any other way now.... I thought that was pretty nice of him to say... He said he tried out my method and I guess he liked how simple it was....Cake, man.... Really is a simple method...best of all,, can't really mess up.. what is it, National pick on Beave day....

Well I ******* it up somehow. I didn't have everything aligned and bent the valves on the right side. I am an idiot I can't freaking believe I did that. Thanks to littlebeaver for coming over and helping me out. He is a great guy for sure. Now I have to spend another $77.00 on parts to pull the head and fix it. Thank God littlebeaver found me a new head so I don't have to buy valves. A BIG LESSON Learned. Think I am going to take my wife's advice and see the doc about my memory and such. I turned 50 and became dumb as a rock. Thanks again to the site and especially to littlebeaver! I owe him BIGTIME!

I was horribly afraid of doing the same thing. I used the zip-tied wrench trick and it worked out really well. The crank had moved a little on me so I spun it by hand about five turns before I felt confident I didn't screw it up... The How-to article was really good to go by.

It's always a good idea to rotate it around by hand twice to make sure everything is clear and on it's marks...Ed is under some heavy medication for his back and he just made a mistake,, we all mess up once in awhile.. Gosh knows I have... He should have it fixed soon... If he messed up the pistons, well... Maybe he's sell it to me for parts...